A $300-million (minimum) gondola to Dodger Stadium? From his arrival in Greater Cleveland, Demjanjuk was a model citizen. "Now, they want to take Demjanjuk, covered in that blood scent, and throw him into a shark tank.". Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate, or jump to a slide with the slide dots. Yet he was not that brutal Ivan, he insisted. To use this feature, use a newer browser. Demjanjuk entered the United States on Feb. 9, 1952, saying he spent much of his war years in the town of Sobibor, Poland. All rights reserved (About Us). In the early 1930s, the Soviets sought to destroy the Ukrainians for owning their own land. His war and the terrors of concentration camps were all but forgotten. Please contact Find a Grave at [emailprotected] if you need help resetting your password. "My father will not live to fairly litigate the matter as has successfully been done before," Demjanjuk's son, John, said weeks after the deportation. In 1991, his appeal was pending when the Soviet Union collapsed, a move that allowed his lawyers to produce testimony from witnesses who identified another man, Ivan Marchenko, as "Ivan the Terrible.". All photos uploaded successfully, click on the Done button to see the photos in the gallery. He was 91. An ambulance pulled into the family's garage, and he was gone. we believe there was fair treatment.. There is 1 volunteer for this cemetery. The emotional outburst came after defense attorney John Gill ended his final arguments and prosecutor Michael Shaked rose to respond to accusations that the prosecution had withheld from the defense documents that would exonerate Demjanjuk. or don't show this againI am good at figuring things out. "He loved life, family and humanity. But his family feared that he would be tortured if he returned to his native Ukraine. Ohio Auto Worker or Nazi? Man Stands Trial for He drilled the anus of one man with an auger, and shoved the face of another hard into barbed wire. I support him all the way, she said. My relatives were forced to eat birds, mice, rats even our pet cat, he once said. He was stripped of his U.S. citizenship in 1981 and was extradited to Israel to stand trial for war crimes. They raised millions of dollars for his defense, and neighbors voiced support for the man they knew as a kindly grandfather who kept his lawn neatly trimmed. But that ID, plus lists of the prisoners he had escorted, plus the scar of an SS tattoo in his left armpit, filled those tricky years in captivity more plausibly than his ever-shifting alibis did. Martin Winkler, a spokesman for the Bavarian police, confirmed that Mr. Demjanjuk was found dead early Saturday in his room in a nursing home. At his trial in Israelonly the second war-crimes trial held there, after Eichmann'sseveral witnesses from Treblinka recognised John as Ivan: strong, boss-like, with his cold blue eyes. He was hospitalized for four months, released and sent back to the front lines, where he was captured by German soldiers in the Crimea in May 1942. ", She said many have been sympathetic and "come to me and cry and feel sorry.". Back in America, Mr. Demjanjuk regained his citizenship, only to have it revoked again as new allegations arose. He could not kill anyone, could not even kill a chicken; he had always had to ask his wife to do it. Using a Nazi identification card with Demjanjuk's name, birth date and parentage, the Justice Department asked a federal judge to revoke Demjanjuk's citizenship, charging that he lied on his application and entered the United States illegally. The cause of death was being investigated, he said. "He worry every minute about me and my kids," Vera Demjanjuk said during an interview outside a door of the house in which she lived since 1975. Obituaries The Demjanjuks said they determined that they could not go home to Ukraine because he would be considered a traitor for allowing the Nazis to recruit him into an anti-Communist fighting unit. WebDemjanjuk was born April 3, 1920, in the village of Dubovi Makharintsi in central Ukraine, two years before the country became part of the Soviet Union. He died nearly three years after being taken from his suburban home and flown overseas, a deportation ordered after U.S. judges ruled that he lied about his Nazi past when he entered the country in 1952 and that he was a guard at two concentration camps and a death camp in World War II. He said Saturday that he and other attorneys working the case "wanted nothing more, nothing less than to be sure the truth about Mr. Demjanjuk's life is known.". Treblinka survivors testified that Ivan the Terrible had also savaged Jews, breaking arms and legs with a steel pipe, cutting off ears and noses with a sword, and flogging women and children with sadistic glee. To add a flower, click the Leave a Flower button. Remove advertising from a memorial by sponsoring it for just $5. As survivors and defendants have aged and died, the prosecution of Nazi-era war criminals has become increasingly rare and difficult. Make sure that the file is a photo. Your account has been locked for 30 minutes due to too many failed sign in attempts. He was 91. Shame on you! JimRead More, Flemington, NJ Frederic M. Compher, 92, entered eternal life on Monday, September 19, 2022, at his residence with loving family by his side. He also swore he never assisted in the persecution of any person because of race, religion or national origin. Your Scrapbook is currently empty. Life Without Father - Cleveland Magazine John Demjanjuks Family & Children: 5 Fast Facts Just how he spent the wartime years has never been confirmed. The couple had three children. If someone worked at a Ford plant, they made cars for a living, Neal Sher, a former OSI head, told the Los Angeles Times. John Demjanjuks Family & Children: 5 Fast Facts Prosecutors produced a Nazi identity card, said to be from the S.S. training camp at Trawniki, Poland, that bore what looked like Mr. Demjanjuks photograph. "'Oh, 'ma. Members of Demjanjuk's Church Pray for His Freedom On his citizenship application, Mr. Demjanjuk had listed his mothers maiden name as Marchenko, but contended later that he had forgotten her real maiden name and used Marchenko only because it was common in Ukraine. In May 2011, a German court found Mr. Demjanjuk guilty and sentenced him to five years in prison. Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. He had two more children, became a naturalized American, lived quietly and retired. An explosive sent shrapnel into his back. She has kept a low profile throughout the case and declined further comment. Try again later. They also said there was evidence on the ID card that it had been tampered with and that the photo might have been lifted from somewhere else. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. A judge ordered his deportation based on his wartime past. In 1981, a federal judge stripped Demjanjuk of his citizenship. Print Obituary Sign Guestbook Name: Location: Video: Image: Light A Candle Candle 1 Candle 2 Candle 3 Candle 4 Email: Please keep my message private Personal Message: Confirm: Submit Guestbook entry Why is Frank McCourt really pushing it? https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/237962244/vera-demjanjuk. To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: jcaniglia@plaind.com, 216-999-4097. Demjanjuk's family said the government forced a grandfather who lived for his family to seldom leave his home, only to drive to the grocery store, his doctor or church. The new case did not allege that he was Ivan the Terrible. She indicated the couple's ordeal was a disappointment compared to their life's hopes after having gone through famine and war and moving here in the early 1950s. Demjanjuk, who was initially believed to be a notorious death-camp guard known as "Ivan the Terrible," died in Germany while appealing his case in 2012. July 13, 2009 / 11:22 AM / CBS News. Yes, yes, Mrs. Demjanjuk said outside church when asked if the ordeal had been difficult. According to news reports, John Demjanjuk's son was quoted by the Associated Press as saying Germany used his father as a "scapegoat to blame helpless Ukrainian POWs for the deeds of Nazi Germans.". Please complete the captcha to let us know you are a real person. she said. Staff writer Michael Birnbaum contributed to this report from Berlin. PARMA, Ohio (AP) _ As an Israeli court weighed her husbands fate, Vera Demjanjuk wept Wednesday while accepting the blessings of a priest. Thanks for your help! Thank you for fulfilling this photo request. Please join us in Loving, Sharing and Memorializing Vera Demjanjuk on this permanent online memorial presented by Chubenko Funeral The photograph on the card bore a striking resemblance to Mr. Demjanjuk. John Demjanjuk died Saturday in Germany, ending nearly 35 years of legal battles with officials in three countries who claimed he was a Nazi death camp guard. The Munich case might well have been the last major war crimes trial in Germany, ending an era that began in Nuremberg in 1945. On Sundays he went, with Vera and the three children Lydia, Irene and John junior, to St Vladimir Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral. She was the same age as John Demjanjuks wife, but it is not yet confirmed if this is the same Vera. Failed to delete flower. He was deported from the US for a second time in the late aughts to face trial again, this time in Germany. He insisted that he was imprisoned at a labor camp near Chelm, Poland, and that in the final year of the war, he joined the army of an anti-Stalinist Russian general, Andrei A. Vlasov. History will show Germany used him as a scapegoat to blame helpless Ukrainian POWS for the deeds of Nazi Germans.". I'm OK, everything is fine,'" she recalled him saying. Attempts to reach John Demjanjuk Jr. were unsuccessful Saturday. Even at the end of his life questions remained in a case that had always been riddled with mysteries. The Soviets collected the testimonies of 37 former Treblinka guards who said the real name of Ivan the Terrible was Ivan Marchenko, who they identified in photos that bore little resemblance to Demjanjuk, The New York Times reported at the time. DURING his nine decades, Ivan Demjanjuk had several identities. If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. After the war, Mr. Demjanjuk met Vera Bulochnik in a German camp for displaced persons. While there was no hard evidence that Demjanjuk killed anyone at the camp, the prosecution based its case on the fact that any guard working at a death camp was at least an accessory to murder, according to The Jerusalem Post. More than 800,000 prisoners are reported to have died at Treblinka. YouTubes privacy policy is available here and YouTubes terms of service is available here. Thanks for using Find a Grave, if you have any feedback we would love to hear from you. They were draftees.". He was released from prison in September 1993 and returned to his family in Seven Hills. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 4/4/2023), Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement, and Your Privacy Choices and Rights (updated 1/26/2023). Demjanjuk The case was largely based on documentary evidence an S.S. identity card purporting to be Mr. Demjanjuks, Nazi orders sending the man identified as Mr. Demjanjuk to work as a guard at Sobibor and other records of the era and testimony by relatives of victims killed in the camp.